


Burning and Melting

by TheTotallySaneSlytherin



Series: Ereri Week 2015 [2]
Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-03
Updated: 2015-06-03
Packaged: 2018-04-02 17:16:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4068118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTotallySaneSlytherin/pseuds/TheTotallySaneSlytherin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eren works in the corn fields for three weeks during the summer because he needs the money. Contains Levi (his boss), a snake, and a fuckton of fields.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning and Melting

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2 of Ereri Week 2015: Summer Job

Eren is twenty five, majoring in architecture, and he’s going to die before he gets his hands on his degree. His bank account is rapidly approaching the negatives, and he still has half a month to pay for food and transport.

He’s already sent his resume to every possible company in his city, but it seems he won’t be getting any positive answers soon, and he’s getting desperate. He’d postulated in advance at the summer job kids had talked about in high school, in case something like this happened and he ended up jobless during the break, and from the ways things are going, that’s where he’s going to work for three weeks in July.

At least it’ll get him enough money to pay next month’s rent. It’s not too hard either: all he has to do is walk in between rows of corn and yank out any flowers he sees. Easy.

 

* * *

 

He’s about to die. It’s seven a.m. on a Monday, and he’s standing in a circle with sixty or so other people (all in varying degrees of consciousness) while their boss explains that they’ll be divided in two groups to work in different fields.

As soon as the explanations are done, they’re made to stand beside vans that probably used to be white but are caked in so many layers of mud that they look camouflaged. Two men appear from behind a shed and start in their direction, and are introduced as Levi and Farlan. They look nice enough, impatient, certainly, but they’re the supervisors, so it’s their job to make the kids hurry up.

They both climb into their respective driver’s seats, then yell at those huddled around the back to get in. And then they’re off, thirty people standing in the back of a van with nothing to hold on to, their backpacks containing water and their lunches rolling around their feet, and Eren’s already wondering if he’ll survive three weeks of this.

Levi drives like a madman. He takes the turns without slowing, runs straight into potholes, and when one boy asks him to slow down he shouts that “It’s not because you’re paid by the hour that we’ll go slow, if you thought this was going to be easy money, get out of my truck.” No one mentions that they’re literally locked in the back, and at this speed, no one wants to risk opening the door.

As soon as they get to wherever they’re supposed to be working that morning, Levi jumps out and slams the back door open.

“Hurry up,” he says “Come on, I’m not getting any younger.”

He yanks a plant, roots and all, out of the soil, and shows them how to take the flowers out without harming what’s around it. “Take as few leaves a you can, or else there’s a risk that the corn won’t grow on this foot.”

He positions everyone at the start of a row, and then they walk. And walk. And walk. When they get to a slight rise on the ground, Eren can see the field stretching forever in front of him. It’s going to be impossible to finish this whole thing this morning.

At every step he makes, he has to stop and bow down to check that there aren’t any flowers at the bottom and when he’s walked a few feet, he has to turn back to see if he hasn’t forgotten any flowers at the top of the plants (he usually has, so he needs to run back to get it). It’s exhausting.

It’s when they’re right under the water system that it gets turned on, and suddenly they’re drenched from head to toe, the leaves get slippery, the ground turns liquid. Eren hears the boy in the row next to his sobbing.

Still, they keep going. Walk, check, turn back. Walk, check, turn back.

 

* * *

 

They stop only to eat lunch, then they’re back. It’s worse during the afternoon: mornings are cold and wet, but at two p.m. they feel like their skin is being peeled off their shoulders from the heat and the sun. They start looking forward to the few feet they have to walk under the irrigation system, at least the water’s cold.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, they’re missing four people.

 

* * *

 

It goes on for a few days. Get there at seven, pile into the van, and then walk. His arms ache, his legs tend to give out as soon as he sees a flat surface he can sit on.

 

* * *

 

On the fourth day, they hear screaming. High pitched, childish, horrified screaming from somewhere to the right. The whole group pauses to whisper, on his left, a girl pops her head into his row, then disappears back into hers. She whispers to her friend on her other side “Not him.”

They go on. No one dares slack off; Levi has some kind of sixth sense that makes him appear as soon as anyone even pauses to breathe. They’ll only know what happened when they get at the end of this, and there’s a building anticipation. They walk faster.

It’s only fifteen minutes later that they emerge, some before others, and huddle together. They wait.

Levi’s the last one to appear, a small snake clutched in his fist, and as soon as the group sees him, they start for the van, like they usually do. The first girl’s already climbing in when the leaves behind Levi tremble, and Reiner (or was it Renner? Randall?) emerges. His face is red, and he looks like he’s been crying, his blond hair is sticking every which way.

Everyone looks from the snake to the boy, then they remember the screaming, and the laughter breaks out almost immediately.

 

* * *

 

Reiner is still there the next morning. Everyone but Levi is surprised.

 

* * *

 

They learn that Levi, for all his cold looks and biting remarks, actually cares about them. He’s a no-nonsense guy, and his sense of humor is very peculiar, but he helps them when they need him.

Soon enough, they start to fight over who gets to sit on the only available seat next to Levi when he drives. They all want to impress him, and they make sure not to leave any flower. It makes his job easier, since he’s the one who has to go after them and check that all the rows are clean.

The most stressful thing is knowing that Levi is behind them in their row, and they get so worked up that they forget half of the flowers, so Levi appears with a bouquet he dumps at their feet without saying anything.

Sometimes, instead, he uses the flowers as darts, and hides in the rows to throw them at their necks. That’s another competition that begins: who can make Levi smile the most.

 

* * *

 

On the thirteenth day, Eren realizes he has a crush on his boss.

 

* * *

 

The day after that, his head is in the clouds. He almost misses his alarm, then puts on sneakers instead of the usual rain boots, and he gets to the meeting point just as the van’s doors are being shut. Levi makes him drive behind them in his own car as some sort of “walk of shame”.

 

* * *

 

“Sorry kids,” Levi shouts the next morning, “But today we’re working in the field behind the Church.”

There’s a rumble of murmurs and “What’s wrong with the Church?” before a girl groans.

“Levi,” she whines, “Can’t Farlan’s group deal with that one?”

“Sorry, Isabel. You know we alternate every year. They did it last time, so now it’s our turn to suffer.”

Isabel slides over to Eren and whispers “I’ve been working here for five years.” she shudders, “We’ve nicknamed that field the Forest of Hell.”

It’s only when they get there that they realize the enormity of the situation. The plants are so tall Eren has to stand on his toes to get the flowers at the top, and they’re impossible to yank out without pulling a muscle on his shoulder.

“Okay,” Levi shouts again, “Gather up. I know you’re used to twenty-minute rows, they’re easy, the feet are short, and you can see ahead and behind you. Forget that. The rows here take at least fifty minutes to get through.” He pauses, “I have nothing to add, good luck.”

 _Forest of Hell my ass,_ Eren thinks as soon as he’s surrounded by vegetation. _This_ is _Hell. I’ll be having nightmares about this for years._

Everywhere he looks is green. He can’t see a foot ahead of him, there are leaves cutting into his cheeks, and it takes every ounce of strength he has to get one miserable flower out. The ground’s been turned into quicksand and his feet sink into it until he has water pouring _inside_ his boots. He doesn’t think he can spend a single second in here, let alone fifty minutes.

Levi finds him five minutes later, miserably crouching next to a sprout with tears in his eyes as he pokes at a caterpillar. “Eren,” he calls, “Come on Eren, I’ll do a few feet with you.”

So he does. They walk together for a while, struggling to free their feet in order to take another step, and then they struggle with the plants and the spider-webs and the spiders on the webs, but Eren feels better. Levi’s presence makes the green less oppressing, and they make small talk to pass the time.

Eren learns that Levi has been working here since he was a teenager because he’s friends with Big Boss Erwin, and that he and Farlan started during the same year, and that Isabel could work somewhere else if she wanted to but she likes to come here to spend time with them.

Eren really _really_ likes to listen to Levi speak. His voice is soft and steady and distracts him from what’s around him. He also likes to watch Levi work; he doesn’t miss a single flower, and his hands are so precise Eren’s gaze becomes fixated on them.

And that’s where it all goes to Hell. Eren’s foot sinks deeper than it usually does, and he loses his balance trying to free it from the mud and topples forward, wrapping his arms around Levi’s hips, who also loses his balance, which sends them both sprawling into the mud.

He’s got his face buried in his boss’ back, and his forearms pinned under him, and what –

He’s cupping Levi’s crotch.

He tries to pull back, but his arms are stuck, so he tells Levi to get up and free him, but they can’t do that either, because Eren’s whole body is weighing Levi down. Instead, they roll over, and Eren is the one sinking into the mud now, but at least he’s on his back with Levi lying on top of him.

When they make it to the end of the row, drenched in sweat and caked in mud, no one says anything. They silently climb in the van, and leave the front seat to Eren (he doubts anyone wants to touch him), and they make their way back to the parking lot at the entrance of the property.

Eren and Levi hose each other down to get as much of the mud as they can off their clothes, but Levi looks so serious that Eren wonders if he’s about to lose his job. He can already see himself trying to explain to Mikasa that he got fired for molesting his boss while Jean roars with laughter in the background.

They get changed in comfortable silence, Eren sneaking glances when he thinks Levi isn’t looking, more often than not getting caught. Levi’s back looks soft and smooth and he wants to run his hands across the skin there and maybe sink his nails in those shoulders and wrap his legs around those hips and –

 _Control yourself Eren_. He wonders if he can be fired for fantasizing about being fucked by his boss.

 

* * *

 

That night he dreams of kissing and grinding and he gives up on pretending. He slides his hand over his erection until he’s trembling with pleasure and making a mess of his underwear. He wonders if he can be fired for masturbating to thoughts of his boss.

 

* * *

 

On the day he receives his paycheck, there’s a small post-it stuck to the contract with a phone number scrawled on it and Levi’s name underneath.

**Author's Note:**

> Working in the fields is not as difficult as I made it sound, my experience was actually quite fun. 3/4 of this actually happened to my group, so this is based on a true story.


End file.
